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Cherwell Service Management vs JIRA Service Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 29, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cherwell Service Management
Ranking in Help Desk Software
27th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
27th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
JIRA Service Management
Ranking in Help Desk Software
2nd
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of JIRA Service Management is 7.3%, down from 11.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
JIRA Service Management7.3%
Cherwell Service Management1.6%
Other91.1%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Thobile Moeketsi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Sasria SOC Ltd.
Having everything in one location has significantly improved our efficiency and reporting
We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges. Even though it uses our Windows login, we still have to be on VPN. The product should be able to log tickets directly from system to system. We haven't got there yet and I'm not sure it's possible but it would determine the product's capability to integrate with other systems.
Sohaib Ahmad - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President Service Delivery at quixel
Comprehensive workflows and data views have supported complex teams but still need cost improvements
JIRA Service Management is costly. The pricing structure needs improvement. When I add some plugins, I have to pay the cost for every user whether they are using it or not. For smaller companies, the detailed workflow editing and the kind of details that JIRA Service Management provides would be complex. For startups and smaller companies, JIRA Service Management would be complex. The cloud offering is easier because I don't have to manage the infrastructure. There are two templates of the project: company-managed and team-managed. Team-managed is a newer feature, which is good for startup-kind companies where they don't need control over data from multiple projects displaying in one dashboard. For startups, JIRA Service Management is somewhat complex with its schemes and everything. Capacity management should be improved in terms of additional features in the next release of JIRA Service Management.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"All our activities are carried out in the one place."
"Its integration features, orchestration features, and discovery tools are the most valuable. It is also pretty stable, and it can be as scalable as you want."
"The dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks."
"The most valuable features are problem management and change management."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"Jira gets the basics right in terms of the product backlog and a scrum board teams can use to manage sprint backlogs."
"We have an Agile environment and using Jira makes it easy to adhere to Agile best practices."
"The most valuable feature of Jira is that it is free of cost, which is a significant advantage."
"The most valuable features are the flexibility of defining your own workflows and automation around the workflows, and the integration with the gate or any repository."
"The query language and the ability to create views of the data are very useful."
"The tool's stability is very good."
"The automation feature in JIRA Service Management is beneficial, and that's yet to be available in ServiceNow. ServiceNow doesn't have the flexibility to automate processes."
"One of the best things about JIRA is that it searches for answers while questions are being typed so some tickets do not need to be submitted."
 

Cons

"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"Areas for improvement would be the service catalog and customer catalog, which is not very user-friendly. The shopping cart experience is also terrible - you submit and go straight to the cart, you can't continue shopping or see your overall cost."
"In general, JIRA has no relation to customers or financials. Therefore, marketplace add-ons are needed to make it work for customer-facing systems."
"There should be some AI integrations now as AI is in the picture."
"JIRA protects the end-user, but for the configuration, more rules could be added to improve the workflow."
"JIRA Service Management should make reporting easier. I would like something integrated with DevOps tools."
"Cost has prohibited us from switching entirely to this solution."
"The customizations in Jira could be improved by being simplified. They are currently very complex."
"The licensing model could be improved. There needs to be a different licensing model for large numbers of employees, as it remains one of the main barriers to using JIRA Service Management across our entire company."
"The product could improve its asset management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"JIRA Service Management's pricing is pretty decent compared to competitors. I rate the pricing an eight to nine on a scale of one to ten."
"The cost has recently increased. It might be around $20 to $25 per user license."
"I would suggest to always buy licenses through an Atlassian partner, so you can also rely on their expertise."
"It costs around $150 to $200 per user."
"Right now, there are only two of us who are both agents on the help desk and developers. We might be on the free version because we're less than three agents or users. I'm looking at Zephyr tests, which have a $10 a month flat rate, so right now, it is $10 a month. There are lots of add-ons. They do a free version, a standard version, and a premium version. In the last company, we started on $50 a month. By the time I left, we were paying $4,500 a month. That was mainly because we had 100 users on Confluence. I bought an add-on for Jira software for which we had 10 users, and that was $5 per user per month. It was costing me $500 a month, whereas it should only be $50 a month. I don't know if licensing fee has changed. I'd like our whole company to use it, but the big problem is the licensing because the Confluence side is what is really useful, but if I add 30 users to Confluence and then buy an extension for Jira software, I've got to pay for 30 licenses, even though I've only got two users in Jira software. It is the one big disadvantage of cloud software. You always have to pay for the number of seats regardless of which product you are on. This will probably severely limit how many people would use it because I'm not going to start paying $10 per user per month for a Jira software add-on when there are only two people using it."
"JIRA Service Desk has different pricing as it is based on agents. On average, the price is about $300 per agent."
"We need a license because we have a higher number than the free part."
"We have an annual license with JIRA Service Management, but it is billed monthly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Energy/Utilities Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise33
 

Also Known As

No data available
JIRA Service Desk, Atlassian Jira Service Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
mgm technology partners, Telestream, Build.com, Zend Technologies, OfficeDrop, PGS Software, American Diabetes Association, NEPTUNE Canada
Find out what your peers are saying about Cherwell Service Management vs. JIRA Service Management and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
882,744 professionals have used our research since 2012.